Brief of Amici Curiae Public Justice, the Prisoners’ Rights Project of the Legal Aid Society of the City of New York, and the Pennsylvania Institutional Law Project in Support of Plaintiffs-Appellees (Argueta v. United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement)

Public Justice is a national public interest law firm dedicated to preserving access to justice, remedying government and corporate wrongdoing, and holding the powerful accountable in courts. As part of its access-to-justice work, Public Justice created an Iqbal Project in 2009 to combat misuse of the Supreme Court’s decision in Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 129 S. Ct. 1937 (2009). The Project tracks developments in the case law and provides assistance to counsel facing Iqbal-based motions. Public Justice is concerned that overbroad readings of Iqbal threaten to deny justice to many injured plaintiffs with meritorious claims. In addition to Public Justice’s Iqbal-related interest in this case, the firm also represents prisoners, arrestees, other detainees, their family members, and other plaintiffs in a variety of cases involving constitutional claims. See, e.g., Hui v. Castaneda, 130 S. Ct. 1845 (2010); Dillon v. Rogers, 596 F.3d 260 (5th Cir. 2010); Menotti v. City of Seattle, 409 F.3d 1113 (9th Cir. 2005); Everett v. Cherry, No. 08-00622 (E.D. Va.) (case pending). Public Justice is concerned that Appellants’ arguments regarding supervisory liability will, if accepted, prevent many plaintiffs with constitutional claims from obtaining a full remedy. The Legal Aid Society of the City of New York is a private organization that has provided free legal assistance to indigent persons in New York City for over 125 years. Through its Prisoners’ Rights Project, the Society seeks to ensure that 2 prisoners’ constitutional and statutory rights are protected. The Society advocates on behalf of prisoners in the New York City jails and New York state prisons, and conducts litigation on prison conditions. The Society often litigates claims of supervisory liability. The Pennsylvania Institutional Law Project is a private not-for-profit organization created to ensure equal access to justice for indigent institutionalized persons. Part of the Pennsylvania Legal Aid Network, the Institutional Law Project provides direct representation services, self-help and other legal materials, and class representation to eligible low-income residents of Pennsylvania’s prisons, jails, state hospitals, and state centers. The Project also takes part in advocacy and legislative initiatives concerning institutional reform in Pennsylvania

Location-based Virtual Reality Experiences for Children:Japan-UK knowledge exchange network: Tokyo Workshop

This is the programme, abstracts and speaker bios for the Location-based Virtual Reality Experiences for Children:Japan-UK knowledge exchange network: Tokyo Workshop

Limits to Poisson's ratio in isotropic materials

A long-standing question is why Poisson's ratio v nearly always exceeds 0.2 for isotropic materials, whereas classical elasticity predicts v to be between -1 to 1/2. We show that the roots of quadratic relations from classical elasticity divide v into three possible ranges: -1 < v <= 0, 0 <= v <= 1/5, and 1/5 <= v < 1/2. Since elastic properties are unique there can be only one valid set of roots, which must be 1/5 <= v < 1/2 for consistency with the behavior of real materials. Materials with Poisson's ratio outside of this range are rare, and tend to be either very hard (e.g., diamond, beryllium) or porous (e.g., auxetic foams); such substances have more complex behavior than can be described by classical elasticity. Thus, classical elasticity is inapplicable whenever v < 1/5, and the use of the equations from classical elasticity for such materials is inappropriate.Comment: Physical Review B, in pres

Crop establishment practices are a driver of the plant microbiota in winter Oilseed Rape (Brassica napus)

Gaining a greater understanding of the plant microbiota and its interactions with its host plant heralds a new era of scientific discovery in agriculture. Different agricultural management practices influence soil microbial populations by changing a soil’s physical, chemical and biological properties. However, the impact of these practices on the microbiota associated with economically important crops such as oilseed rape, are still understudied. In this work we investigated the impact of two contrasting crop establishment practices, conventional (plow based) and conservation (strip–tillage) systems, on the microbiota inhabiting different plant microhabitats, namely rhizosphere, root and shoot, of winter oilseed rape under Irish agronomic conditions. Illumina 16S rRNA gene sequence profiling showed that the plant associated microhabitats (root and shoot), are dominated by members of the bacterial phyla Proteobacteria, Actinobacteria and Bacteroidetes. The root and shoot associated bacterial communities displayed markedly distinct profiles as a result of tillage practices. We observed a very limited ‘rhizosphere effect’ in the root zone of WOSR, i.e., there was little or no increase in bacterial community richness and abundance in the WOSR rhizosphere compared to the bulk soil. The two tillage systems investigated did not appear to lead to any major long term differences on the bulk soil or rhizosphere bacterial communities. Our data suggests that the WOSR root and shoot microbiota can be impacted by management practices and is an important mechanism that could allow us to understand how plants respond to different management practices and environments

MRI-derived g-ratio and lesion severity in newly diagnosed multiple sclerosis

Myelin loss is associated with axonal damage in established multiple sclerosis. This relationship is challenging to study in vivo in early disease. Here, we ask whether myelin loss is associated with axonal damage at diagnosis, by combining non-invasive neuroimaging and blood biomarkers. We performed quantitative microstructural MRI and single molecule ELISA plasma neurofilament measurement in 73 patients with newly diagnosed, immunotherapy naïve relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis. Myelin integrity was evaluated using aggregate g-ratios, derived from magnetization transfer saturation (MTsat) and neurite orientation dispersion and density imaging (NODDI) diffusion data. We found significantly higher g-ratios within cerebral white matter lesions (suggesting myelin loss) compared with normal-appearing white matter (0.61 vs 0.57, difference 0.036, 95% CI 0.029 to 0.043, p &amp;lt; 0.001). Lesion volume (Spearman’s rho rs= 0.38, p &amp;lt; 0.001) and g-ratio (rs= 0.24 p &amp;lt; 0.05) correlated independently with plasma neurofilament. In patients with substantial lesion load (n = 38), those with higher g-ratio (defined as greater than median) were more likely to have abnormally elevated plasma neurofilament than those with normal g-ratio (defined as less than median) (11/23 [48%] versus 2/15 [13%] p &amp;lt; 0.05). These data suggest that, even at multiple sclerosis diagnosis, reduced myelin integrity is associated with axonal damage. MRI-derived g-ratio may provide useful additional information regarding lesion severity, and help to identify individuals with a high degree of axonal damage at disease onset. York, Martin et al. simultaneously measured g-ratio and plasma neurofilament in 73 relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis patients at diagnosis using advanced MRI and single molecule ELISA. They demonstrate that g-ratio of cerebral white matter lesions varies at diagnosis, and show that high g-ratio of lesions is associated with elevated plasma neurofilament

Looking without knowing: Rancière, Aristotle, and spectating in the representative regime

This thesis expands Jacques Ranciere’s critique of theories of political spectatorship through an examination of Aristotle’s description of poetry in the Poetics, and musical education in Politics 8. In The Emancipated Spectator, Ranciere argues that theories of spectatorship encode a ‘paradox of the spectator’ by implying that spectators are both passive and ignorant in relation to the artwork. Ranciere locates the origins of this paradox in Plato’s attacks on art in the Republic, arguing that it persists in contemporary theories that seek to ‘redeem’ spectators from the ills of spectating. In his analysis, Ranciere appears to allude to an Aristotelian influence on the paradox, but does not explore it in detail. This thesis undertakes an in-depth analysis of Aristotelian spectatorship in light of Ranciere’s political and aesthetic framework to demonstrate Aristotle’s contribution to the spectator paradox. I argue that Aristotle ‘redeems’ spectatorship from ignorance and passivity by distinguishing art from spectacle, and idealised spectatorship from viewership. Ranciere’s conceptualisation of the ‘representative regime of art’ describes a paradigm of art-practices predicated on hierarchies of genre found in the Poetics. I argue that careful reading of the Poetics via the representative regime reveals aspects overlooked by Ranciere that are of significance for his critique of spectatorship. Aristotle’s subordination of material performance produces an ‘anti-optical’ relationship that grounds art in the intelligence and ‘good activity’ of poetic composition. The effect is to establish a pedagogical relationship whereby good art is recognized by ideal spectators, to the exclusion of ‘vulgar’ audiences. The political effects of Aristotelian spectatorship are evident in his division of audiences in Chapter 8 of the Politics. An examination of the Athenian theatre, and of Plato’s and Aristotle’s discussions of democratic spectatorship reveals an opposition between elite critical judgement (krisis) and the noise of mass audiences (thorubos). I argue that this opposition forms an instance of what Ranciere terms the ‘distribution of the sensible’ by differentiating educated spectatorship from ignorant viewership. In Politics 8 this distribution is founded upon wider partitions of time, activity, and labour in the state. I suggest that Aristotle ‘redeems’ spectatorship by producing political distinctions between the idealised ‘good spectatorship’ of the educated and the ‘bad viewership’ of the ignorant. In doing so, Aristotle re-encodes the passivity and ignorance of viewing. My examination of Aristotelian spectatorship establishes the case for the conceptual expansion of Ranciere’s representative regime, and critique of spectatorship, and suggests the importance of Ranciere’s critique of spectatorship for his wider political and aesthetic thought.Thesis (M.Phil.) -- University of Adelaide, School of Humanities, 2015